Book review | The 'Sultan' of Swing's grip was good and so is Wasim Akram's memoir

A file photo of former Pakistani cricketer Wasim Akram in his heyday. (Photo: Twitter)

Breathless. That’s how Wasim Akram left pundit and layman alike as he charged in, burst through the crease and delivered the cricket ball gracefully, making it do his bidding time after magical time. Ball after ball, over after over, match after match, year after year for 17 years, inarguably the left-arm paceman of all time mesmerised the world, transcending the ordinary like few before or since. In an era given to hyperbole and unalloyed hoopla, it’s no exaggeration to refer to Akram as a "genius", such was the skill he could summon to reduce the best in the business to blundering wrecks.

Breathless. That’s also the feeling one is left with after reading Sultan, a memoir Akram has co-written with Gideon Haigh, the excellent English-born Australian journalist and author. The title couldn’t be more appropriate — after all, Akram was the undisputed Sultan of Swing, conventional and reverse — as the book rushes from one event to another, one happy episode to another sordid chapter. By the end of it, you feel as if you have been assailed by an overload of information, not much of it new or hitherto unrevealed.

'Sultan: A Memoir Paperback', by Wasim Akram & Gideon Haigh, 2023, HarperCollins, 304 pages, Rs 699.

Make no mistake, Sultan is a fascinating read even for the initiated. It traces Akram’s journey from the bylanes of Model Town in Lahore to the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Lord’s in London. If it was with a tape ball that he terrorised his buddies in his childhood, then he used the red and white balls of different makes to overpower and overwhelm batsmen at the highest level, always doing so with a generous smile that did little to hide his intense competitiveness.

Handpicked by Javed Miandad but influenced inexorably by Imran Khan, Akram rose to dizzying heights during a career that fetched him 414 Test wickets and 502 scalps in One-Day Internationals. He only played five Twenty20 games, which is a shame because he would have been an unquestioned hit in that format too, given his prolificity with the ball and his propensity to smack a fair few out of the park from his scything willow. But like all geniuses, there was always more to Akram than mere numbers, no matter how extraordinary. The delight he provided the audience with his wondrous craft is indescribable; suffice to say that supporters of all nations set their loyalties aside and enjoyed his working over of batsmen, never mind friend or foe.

Akram has made no secret of his reverence and admiration for Imran, but if anyone was still in doubt, Sultan will dispel those. At various stages, Akram talks about how the World Cup-winning captain handheld him in his early days. “I was his project,” he writes. “He got me to accentuate my pivot as I hit the crease, so that my shoulder really snapped. He got me locking my wrist and securing the ball with my third and fourth fingers, so that the seam came out stable. He refined my run-up; he worked on my variations; he taught me to bowl at the death in one-day internationals. …Imran told me how to prepare a ball (for reverse swing), how to cant my wrist, how to disguise my hand, and how optimally to deliver it — fast and full.”

The admiration is, of course, mutual. Each of Sultan’s 15 chapters is prefaced by a glowing testimonial from a celebratred international cricketer. Interestingly enough, the only Pakistani in that list — which includes Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Akram’s great mate Ravi Shastri — is Imran, who says of his protégé, “I never saw a cricketer with such talent. Everything about him was completely natural… What I taught him was the art of taking wickets and the importance of self-discipline — how he had to work if he was to fulfill his enormous potential.”

As you devour the pages, you understand why Imran, alone of all the Pakistani greats, has been asked for an endorsement. Akram’s relationships with a majority of his colleagues, he reveals, was testy-to-tempestuous. Not even with Miandad, who was responsible for fast-tracking the gawky teenager’s entry into the big league, did Akram enjoy a cordial equation. Perhaps, that had something to do with the fact that Akram naturally aligned himself with the other major power centre in Pakistan cricket, Imran. Perhaps, that also meant once Imran bid adieu after marshalling his troops to an unlikely, epochal World Cup triumph at the MCG in 1992, Akram became a lonely figure, falling out with most mates, including his great fast-bowling partner Waqar Younis, sighted first by Akram himself.

The list of Pakistani individuals Akram had issues with is long, exhaustive and indicative of the kind of forces in play in Pakistan cricket. Miandad and Waqar apart, his primary objects of ire (or is it contempt?) are former captains Saleem Malik, Aamer Sohail and Rashid Latif, apart from administrator Majid Khan, curiously enough Imran’s cousin even though the duo weren’t the best of buddies during their playing days. He did, however, make friends everywhere else in the world, most notably at Lancashire for whom he played County cricket for a decade between 1988 and 1998.

Akram throws a light on the controversies that dogged him — allegations of ball-tampering and match-fixing — while steadfastly pleading his innocence, as well as on his addiction to cocaine after his playing days and the part his late wife Huma played in ridding him of that addiction. Huma and Shaniera, to whom he is married now, come through as pillars of strength and support, both independent and brave women who stood up for their convictions.

One of the greatest challenges of writing someone else’s book is to try and replicate the protagonist’s tone. Haigh has navigated the choppy waters with characteristic deftness, though one does get the feeling that it’s Akram’s story and his voice. The lack of attention sometimes to obvious detail is a little jarring. Such as, that Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka jointly hosted the 1987 World Cup (Page 50). Not the only one, but let’s leave it at that.

Sultan is compelling, honest and frank (mostly), though you feel it could have been more. Then again, isn’t that what we generally say about the good things in life?